Tag: Kanso

Categories
Country Life Landscape Photography

Fence in Foggy Field

Fence Post in Fog, Williams Farm, Wyebridge, ON

The chief merit of this post is the alliteration in the title: three “F” words in a row is irresistible. I could have added a fourth, but then I’d be giving up my family friendly rating. But enough about rhetoric.

This is a variation on the theme of Kanso, which I’ve previously mentioned here and here, creating a scene of calming simplicity by removing elements from the image one by one until only the essential remains. Although photography in the real world often makes it impossible to remove elements from a scene (Photoshop notwithstanding), nature itself sometimes steps in and lends a hand.

In previous posts, I’ve shown how a backdrop of pure snow can render an utterly simple photo. In this instance, I turn to fog as my natural assistant. It isn’t perfect, but it helps. The fog softens the background just enough that it doesn’t distract us from the foreground, a single fence post. We can trace the line of fence posts that recedes across the field and disappears into the foggy distance.

I shot this on New Year’s Day, 2022 at Williams Farm in Wyebridge, Ontario. The scene arrived like a gift and, although I wouldn’t call myself a superstitious person, I took it as a portent of the year to come. At least as far as photographs go, I expect 2022 will be an excellent year.

Categories
Landscape Photography

Snow Fence on Balmy Beach Overlooking Lake Ontario

Balmy Beach, Toronto, ON

In making today’s featured image, I approached the scene from the far side of Kanso. In an earlier post, I mentioned the Japanese aesthetic of Kanso, which can be understood as simplicity or clarity. As a process, it demands that the photographer remove from an image everything that is unnecessary until only the essential remains.

However, in this case I started with a simple image—a snow-covered breakwater extending into Lake Ontario (shown below)—and decided it needed something more. I moved further down the beach and positioned myself with a snow fence in the foreground. To my way of seeing, this is more satisfactory for a couple reasons. First, it adds a sense of depth to the image by creating a crisp foreground. And second, the reddish brown of the fence slats complements the blue-green of the water; the resulting contrast is more dramatic.

I don’t know if the Japanese have a name for a simple, calming image produced by adding features until we arrive at a satisfying sense of balance. If not, let’s make one up. How about Osnak? The opposite of Kanso.

Ironically, although the point of the exercise is to produce a sense of calm through simplicity or clarity, I was anything but calm when I made these photographs. There was a biting wind blowing snow and ice pellets from the west. Ice had crusted on my eyebrows and my fingers were stiff with the cold. We see none of my personal discomfort reflected in the image. The problem with Kanso (or Osnak) is that it hides the personal sacrifices I made to produce the image. Yet there are times when I would prefer it if everyone knew how much I suffer for my art. 🙂

Balmy Beach in winter, Toronto, ON
Categories
Country Life Still Life

Minimal Winter Photos

One of the things I love about photographing in the wintertime is that if you angle your camera downward against a rising slope, you can isolate the subject and produce an absolutely simple shot. Call it what you like—minimal, clean, uncluttered, Zen—the effect is the same: an image that calms the spirit and settles the senses.

I wonder if Marie Kondo gives photography workshops. Declutter your images. Leave in only those parts that give you joy. It’s not surprising that a contemporary “influencer” of the uncluttered space should happen to be Japanese. Traditional Japanese aesthetics lists seven principles necessary to achieve Wabi-Sabi which is a state of mind that emerges in the presence of beauty. One of those principles is Kanso which means simplicity or clarity. Kanso might also be understood as a process to the extent that it engages us in the practice of removing things from the frame until only the necessary remains.

Snow helps in this process by removing clutter in the background. In the case of the photograph above, that clutter includes dirt, grass, and shriveled wildflowers. In the case of the photograph below, that clutter includes a pond and the line of the far shore, all of which has turned to ice and been covered by a deep layer of snow.

Cattails